Beware trolls creating false public sphere
Published on: Sunday, March 17, 2019
By: Avtar Singh
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It is in these comment sections that these “trolls” get a static space with a “built-in audience,” at which they can hurl the kind of shocking racist and bigotry most wouldn’t even dare express offline.
The scary part in all of this is in Malaysia, there seems to be a large built-in base ready to attack anyone or any topic relating to politics, LGBT issues, women’s rights and women’s issues and sensitive issues that continue to plague this nation.
What these “trolls” are seeking is engagement. They want people to be offended. They want people to be shocked.
They want a reaction. But by and large, what they hope to do is to hit on 1 or 2 individuals out of 10 who may agree with the agenda or the mindset of these trolls to add on to what they have said.
Hence, change what was once a fantastic “space” for a meeting of minds scattered across the nation (or the globe), and to share opinions and to comment in a fair and honest manner without offending or upsetting people into one that has become havens for the nations racists, sexists and homophobic minds and a place where those desperately seeking attention can go and “get some!”
Comments sections especially on news portals on social media have devolved into places where anonymous strangers can “punch” those they despise, admire, envy - or perhaps all of the above. Any sane person attempting to correct or to correct these trolls is set upon like a pack of wolves.
You have absolutely no chance of winning any discussion, debate or argument with them because there will only ever be one winner and this destroys the whole concept of free speech and the right to a fair opinion.
The problem is that comment sections can shape individual readers’ opinions who read the comments as they get the impression, falsely, that many people (these many people being trolls) have the same opinion on a topic and this in turn can shape how a reader interprets public opinion more broadly.
The extreme beliefs of a few can be interpreted as a reflection of the beliefs of the general public and this in turn distorts the reality of a situation.
What we want, which is where public-minded citizens can openly share fair and reasonable arguments and are gracious about the opinions of other people, regardless if they agree or disagree with those opinions, is that comment sections on news portals remain an important part of the new Malaysia that also tests the viability of deliberative democracy.
Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision-making.
It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule.
However, the problem is that many of these trolls are paid individuals who sit in a room, sometimes alone, sometimes in an office setting with one intention and one agenda – to open a series of facebook or twitter accounts (may be over 10 accounts though I have heard of individuals managing as many as 50 facebook accounts at one time) with the intention of pushing an agenda be it anti-government rhetoric or to bring up issues and topics that will inflame or cause anger within a community on purpose.
They are paid by political parties or “NGO’s” to cause social unrest and to change opinions; to divide a nation and to divide society and to create issues of race, religion and politics within Malaysia.
Little has been done thus far to combat these trolls and they are running wild on social media and causing havoc – they are angering every section of the Malaysian community every single day with every single political and social discussion or topic that makes it into the news.
In some instances, these paid trolls create topics and create controversy on purpose to upset one segment of society on purpose with the agenda of causing hurt and to upset people on purpose so that people will think and react in a pre-determine manner.
But what makes things worse is if these respected news portals are not managed well from the very beginning and they leave these hate comments online for everyone to read rather than to remove and ban the individuals making these comments from their site.
They feel that by allowing an individual the right to make hateful comments that will upset people, they are giving people the right to voice out their opinions, no matter how wrong these comments are and how seditious these comments are.
So, if these local news portals are allowing these comments to remain on their sites, they too are responsible for allowing sedition to happen are they not?
Whilst we in Sabah sit and read all the horrible comments and division of society amongst the races in West Malaysia, be warned. The same problems can and will come our way if we are not careful and it is these trolls who will divide our society and our way of life and this is something we should not encourage.
But unless the laws in this country are changed and unless owners of these news portals take responsbility for their social media sites and act on racist comments and bigotary and comments of hate, things will continue to get worse. They simply must learn to be responsible for their actions.
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